Reforms give FUSD board a tough task

Trustee candidates face whirlwind of change for struggling district.

Published online on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2006

The next Fresno Unified school board will inherit a hefty responsibility — overseeing academic reform in the struggling district.

California's fourth-largest school district has wrestled for years with test scores that lag behind federal standards.

Last year, Superintendent Michael Hanson, soon after taking the job, set a plan in motion to change all that. He rearranged departments, created new jobs and reassigned leaders.

Time and test scores will reveal whether the reforms work. Meanwhile, Fresno voters on Nov. 7 will choose who will oversee the district of 75,575 students.

Ten candidates are competing for four seats on the seven-member board. Voters living anywhere in the district can vote in all four races.

The four board seats represent areas usually identified by the nearest high school, and candidates must live in the area where they run. Terms last four years.

In the Edison High area, retired college administrator and part-time school counselor Cal Johnson is running against incumbent Luisa Medina, development director for Central California Legal Services, which provides free legal assistance to low-income families.

The candidates in the Sunnyside High area are retired redevelopment director Stafford Parker and incumbent Valerie Davis, who quit her teaching job at Fresno Unified after winning election two years ago.

Competing for the McLane High-area seat are incumbent Tony Vang, a professor at California State University, Fresno, and Julie Hornback, Fresno County director of employment and temporary assistance.

The Bullard High-area race has four candidates: incumbent Pat Barr, who is a retired teacher; Fresno Unified reading tutor Michelle Arax Asadoorian; Strongtower Financial assistant vice president John Lester; and Fresno Unified independent study teacher Jim Barr, who is not related to the incumbent.

The three other board members — who are not up for re-election until 2008 — are Hoover High-area representative Janet Ryan, Fresno High-area representative Carol Mills and Roosevelt High-area representative Manuel Nunez.

What is the board's role in academic reform? And what will board members have to face in the next four years?

It depends on whom you ask. Some observers of the district say the efforts to reform Fresno Unified will make the job of the trustees more challenging.

But Roy Mendiola predicts a rosy future for the district.

Mendiola works for Fresno Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning, a group that helps mobilize after-school programs. He helped write a citizens' report in 2004 offering ideas on how to fix Fresno Unified's problems. Hanson and other district leaders have relied heavily on recommendations in the report, called "Choosing Our Future."

Mendiola praised improvements Hanson already has accomplished in the district, calling them extensive. He mentioned the district's better financial stability as one such improvement.

"That was like an 'Extreme Makeover.' I've never seen a district go through so much change in such a short period of time," he said.

Mendiola said the next board will need to monitor academic reforms already in place. He said board members should keep those that work and jettison those that fail.

"I think that the pain and the challenge and the difficulty, for the most part, is already behind us," he said.

State Assembly Member Juan Arambula, D-Fresno, has a different view. Arambula, and other members of a group called Voices for Excellence in Fresno Unified, is endorsing four candidates for the board, including two incumbents.